Makoto (M)
A wandering (or very uncommitted) Stray. When he was first "born", he was not originally in Pebbleton; not too long after his "awakening" though, he eventually wandered into the town and has generally stayed there since, biding his time and not really knowing what he is waiting for. He occasionally makes half-hearted efforts to recover bits of his memories, but usually find his attention drawn elsewhere in the midst of searching. M spends most of his time otherwise watching humans with mild interest, or else wandering around town with no particular destination. Although he is not fazed by the aspect of being dead, he chooses to walk around instead of float - simply because it makes him feel a little bit more alive. He later bonds with Sanae in a very unforgettable bonding ceremony. Unforgettable in more ways than one. Name M is actually a choppy abbreviation of Mad Hooder. He chose his name whimsically while passing by an electronics store, where they were showing an animated rendition of Alice in Wonderland on the TVs. He liked the Mad Hatter the most, so he decided to call himself the Mad Hooder, because he wears hoodie sweaters instead of hats. That is all. Since Mad Hooder is a bit of a mouthful to say though, he generally sticks to M, and only uses his long-winded name on equally long-winded occasions. After bonding with Sanae however, he has been renamed Makoto, after his brutal honesty (or "truthfulness" would be a nicer way of putting it). Despite this, he still primarily refers to himself as M. Personality and Appearance Tall and lanky, with short, messy hair. As he likes hoodies, M customarily wears one. He has a white patch on his cheek, though he's never really paid any attention to it. His most eye-catching feature is probably his black mantle. At one point, he also donned a full set of Japanese samurai armor as the result of his bonding pact. Much to the dismay of Sanae, however, M was far too attached to his hoodie to keep it. Although he did manage to revert most of his clothing back to its usual appearance, a few remnants of the bulky armor still survive in the form of a few pieces left on his shoulders and arms. Generally laidback and chill, he has an expression that usually gives away nothing. M is not particularly disturbed with the aspect that he's dead, and even less so at the fact that he's devoid of memories. For the most part, he views things with a flat sort of indifference and lack of bias - despite this however, he has a not-so subtle, sinister mischievous streak that he utilizes from time to time. M usually speaks bluntly, and as a result, he has a tendency to come off as a jerk. In addition to hoodies, he likes cartoons; he actually makes a regular habit of peeking into people's living rooms to watch the episodes of his two most favorite shows, The Anti-Hero and Tower of Draunest. He has a soft spot for children (Sophia), and exercises a significantly higher amount of patience for those with childish mentalities (Cassius). With everyone else though, he'll come off with his standard, devil-may-care jerkiness, which often has him at odds with Martin. Powers When encountering malicious Blights and similar enemies, he usually escapes upon sight with an unreadable expression on his face. Although M can use his ether to create shadows from his body, its only use so far is as a shadow cloak for hiding... which isn't really useful in broad daylight. When push comes to shove though, he will eventually create some sort of weapon and attempt to mutilate his pursuer through sheer intimidation alone (there has to some merit somewhere for the "Mad" in Mad Hooder, after all). Unfortunately, since he doesn't exactly know how to make his shadows solid yet, he can't actually attack and deal damage; thus, when all else fails, the Mad Hooder is pretty much toast. While his shadows are still black despite the color of his ether, said ether does coat the shadows with a faint white glow (making his hiding techniques pretty much useless at night as well). On most other occassions, M often ejects some of his own ether as a way of baiting rampaging Blights away from him, though against larger, more powerful Blights, this is usually not effective. Due to his limited ether supply, he is very good at measuring out precise amounts of his ether, and can use this to make near identical doppelgangers of himself (in ether signature only, the appearance is that of a shadowy, M-shaped blob). After bonding with Sanae, M can also use his shadows as a medium for transportation. This is not a form of instantaneous teleportation (though Martin has dubbed it as such), but rather just M using his shadows to propel himself to move faster than he does ordinarily. With this in mind, this ability is only limited by the amount of ether M has to spend - which in turn, does affect his speed - as the farther he has to go, the longer it will take him to get there, and the more ether he will have to use up. He can also utilize his shadows to move multiple ether-sensitive beings with him, though doing this expends more ether than what he would normally use to move himself. Outside of ether-based combat, M is unusually fast for a Stray, and can apparently hit sixty km/hr with ease on foot - though floating does make him considerably faster, at the cost of more ether spent. He also seems to have a higher affinity than other Strays for interacting with "real" objects, such as... juggling garbage can lids. Although M can shapeshift his own ether once he has projected it into its shadow form, it does take him a little more concentration to give it an actual shape than it would other Strays (such as Jacket). He also cannot shapeshift his actual body, though with enough effort he can modify his clothing, but the amount of concentration he has to put into it is rather taxing and just not worth it. You can almost say M has no imagination to make it happen easily. Moves }} Relationships Sophia The adorable Sophia is M's regular companion around Pebbleton. It's hard to say who's the sidekick between the two of them, but M considers Sophia as his semi-precious little sister. Who's safety and overall well-being apparently holds the world and M's own fate in balance. It's hard work being the big brother of a saccharine-sweet little ghost girl. Especially when said girl is more interested in the whereabouts and actions of your not-cooler-but-more-macho-and-thusly-more-stupid rival, big brother figure, the Phantom Jacket of Pebbleton. Dammit. Sanae Sanae is M's linked Crosser. His impression of the woman is a mix correlating to her moods and emotions, which have since varied from being a sap to a borderline psychotic PMS monster. Overall, M finds the Japanese lady to be as much of a handful as taking care of Sophia, only marginally less gullible, more timid, and a little more interesting to poke fun of than his other acquaintances. That's not to say he doesn't like Sanae, but there are times when can't help but be impressed with her assertion of will, just like there are times when he wishes she wouldn't make all of his Enomena flower shaped. Jacket M's aforementioned not-cooler-but-more-macho-and-thusly-more-stupid rival is Jacket, to whom M takes an immediate disliking to the first time they meet. Why exactly M dislikes the other Stray remains to be seen, but it might have to do with how the other guy jumps into things without thinking, and how his ether is black while yours is white. Or that everything that Jacket seems to be involved in somehow manages to make more work for M in the long run, which includes but is not limited to saving the Stray's ex-Crosser and Co. when the dude couldn't keep himself in a position to do it himself, and walking around Pebbleton for several days with Sophia in search of the same Stray's murky dead carcass and subsequently beating off the Blight variation of Phantom Jacket instead. God dammit. Category:Player Characters Category:Strays Category:Characters